Belated Honor For A Pioneer

Hardly anyone around these parts noticed when the late Polk C. Brockman was inducted into the Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame last month.

That's because even die-hard country music fans have never heard of this Southern gentleman who lived quietly in Winter Park the last 15 years of his life. He died last year at age 86.

But everyone ought to know what he did for country music. Mr. Brockman goes back to the '20s, when a youthful recording industry was fending off the challenge of live radio. A young record distributor in Atlanta at the time, Mr. Brockman talked a New York executive into coming to Georgia to record a street musician named Fiddlin' John Carson.

The record was a hit and it kicked open doors for hillbilly artists throughout the South. Some of them became legends. But not Polk C. Brockman. When her father died, Barbara Brockman of Winter Park set out to change that. She aims to get him inducted into Nashville's Country Music Hall of Fame.

Atlanta was the first step. Now maybe the good folks in Nashville will pay attention to the man who gave today's country music recording industry a running start.